Goya champuru

Goya (ゴーヤー, also nigauri) is the warty bitter melon of the islands, halved, seeded and sliced into thin half-moons. The cook browns torn shima-dofu first, fries the goya quickly with a little salt, then pours in beaten egg and folds the tofu and meat back through. The bitterness is the point. MAFF notes that goya's vitamin C holds up in the pan, and Okinawan households have long cooked the dish against natsubate, the heavy tiredness of summer.

MAFF's recipe uses boiled pork belly and lists canned pork such as Spam as the common swap. Luncheon meat came to Okinawa with the American occupation after the war and settled into miso soup and champuru as plain 'pork' (ポーク). Goya was a summer crop, and breeding and greenhouses now keep it on shelves all year. JA Okinawa names Nago, Chinen in Nanjo, Itoman, Kume-jima and Miyako as the main growing areas, and it marks 8 May as Goya Day, a pun on go-ya for five and eight.

Shokudo plates differ in how much bitterness they leave in. Some cooks salt and squeeze the slices first, and others soak them in cold water or blanch them, which makes for a gentler plate.